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Dear John: I now wonder if what the Social Security Administration did to my monthly payment arrangement a few years ago when I was 67 was part of its planning to cut costs.

In 1997, when I was 67, I had planned to start taking Social Security benefits at age 70 and so had not yet applied.

Despite that, when I was 67 1/2 years old, I received a large lump-sum check covering 2 1/2 years of Social Security payments back to my 65th birthday. And since then I have been paid a monthly payment based on the rate of a person starting benefits at age 65. I am now receiving a smaller check than if I had started my payments at age 70.

Recently I read of the Boskin Commission set up in 1996 (one year before the SSA transaction with me) to review cutting SSA costs by lowering the Consumer Price Index.

Was the action that SSA took with me part of a larger cost-cutting plan? M.S.

Dear M.S. You’ll need to provide your Social Security number in order to find out what is going on. I will privately give you the name and phone number of someone at the SSA so you can do this.

I deferred entirely to the Social Security people on your question. And here is what they said:

“This one left us a little puzzled,” said the SSA folks. “Since 1991, the maximum retroactivity of Social Security retirement applications for beneficiaries over their full retirement age is six months. Without M.S’s Social Security number, it is impossible to research her record and say what the ‘lump sum’ payment received in 1997 represented.”

The number you — and anyone else with a Social Security question — should call is (800) 772-1213. Make an appointment to visit an SSA office.

And by the way, the government is always coming up with novel ways of measuring inflation, which of course affects the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients and others.

Is the government trying to cheat people? Yes. But Washington is desperate to save money, and cheating people seems to be the only way it knows how.

Dear John: A couple of months ago, I wrote to you describing a modest scam by ExxonMobil regarding its gift cards. As I discovered, to my annoyance, the stations that charge separate rates for cash and credit gasoline purchases hit users of the ExxonMobil cards with the higher rate.

I didn’t waste time trying to argue with the stations but instead wrote the headquarters. A representative explained that franchisees have the right to bill whatever they wished.

A bit later, I got a call from the [station] manager, who stated that they were hit by Exxon with a “credit-card clawback.” It’s curious the headquarters rep didn’t mention that.

Oh, the manager offered me $10 of free gas. But that may be difficult [to collect] because the station seems to have closed. D.B.

Dear D.B. Way to go! I love consumer activism.

Now if you can get ExxonMobil to share the clawback with its customers — perhaps in the form of a free oil change for all —you will really be my hero.

Dear John: I would like to send [the] grandmother the $300 that she lost [due to inadvertently being issued counterfeit bills by TD Bank]. Please let me know where I can send her the money. R.D.

Dear R.D. TD Bank has now refunded grandma’s account, But thank you for your generosity.